applications-office-suites

Spreadsheets, graphical, open source:

o gnumeric: http://www.gnome.org/projects/gnumeric/ <= I use
o Kspread: http://www.koffice.org/kspread/
o Calc in OpenOffice: http://www.openoffice.org/
o SIAG: http://siag.nu/
o xspread:
http://www.mnis.fr/home/linux/appli/spreadsheet/xspread.html

Spreadsheets, console, open source:

o sc
o oleo

Spreadsheets, graphical, proprietary:

o NExS: http://www.greytrout.com/
o WingZ and WingZ Professional: http://www.wingz.com/
o StarCalc inside Sun StarOffice:
http://www.sun.com/software/star/staroffice/
o Xess / Xesslite: http://www.ais.com/
o Vistasource's ApplixWare Office (suite) aka AnyWhere Desktop,
http://www.vistasource.com/products/
(This was formerly from Applix, and was also available from
SuSE as Linux Office Suite.)

The redoubtable Christopher Browne has pages on Linux spreadsheets
as well as on practically anything else you want to know about Linux
software: http://www.cbbrowne.com/info/spreadsheetscomm.html

From: Rick Moen rick@linuxmafia.com
Newsgroups: linuxworld.forums.articles.1999-12-penguin_1
Subject: Re: Disagree
Date: 4 Jan 2000 23:41:15 GMT
Organization: If you lived here, you'd be $HOME already
NNTP-Posting-Host: uncle-enzo.linuxmafia.com
User-Agent: tin/pre-1.4-981002 ("Phobia") (UNIX) (Linux/2.0.38 (i486))

[...]

On your query regarding workstation/desktop office applications for
Linux...

You have:

Applix
Quadraton Cliq
Smartsoft
KOffice
Gnome Office apps
Star Office
Corel Word Perfect and upcoming siblings

Here are some open-source additions. A few of these (such as Abiword)
I actually _use_ on occasion. The others are just hanging around on my
Debian "potato"-based laptop in case I ever need them. For most of my
needs, I'm a vim / Mozilla / m4 / python / bash / awk / grep kinda guy. ;->

Abacus (small, easy graphical spreadsheet)
Abiword
Gnumeric (spreadsheet)
LyX (slick graphical front-end to LaTeX)
Magicpoint (presentation graphics)
Oleo (spreadsheet)
Siag Office (includes Scheme In A Grid spreadsheet, Pathetic Writer word
processor, Egon animation program, Xfiler file manager, each of
which is also available separately).
Xspread (simple X version of the old "sc" spreadsheet)
Xpaint (fairly versatile bitmap/pixmap editor) or Tkpaint
Xanim (player for a huge range of animations/movies including Quicktime,
MPEG, MS Video)
TkDesk (desktop/file manager)
GIMP (draw/paint/edit/manipulate images)
amp/freeamp (mp3 audio player)
Electric Eyes (graphics viewer/editor)
dia (diagram/chart/graph editor)

From: Bryan -TheBS- Smith thebs@theseus.com
Reply-To: thebs@theseus.com, b.j.smith@ieee.org
Organization: Theseus Logic
To: Ian B MacLure imaclure@mail.arc.nasa.gov
Date: Tue, 9 May 2000 11:40:56 -0400
Cc: svlug@svlug.org, b.j.smith@ieee.org, thebs@theseus.com
Subject: [svlug] My take on apps -- RE: DocBook, Framemaker on Linux

On Tue, 09 May 2000, Ian B MacLure wrote:

> Any feel for staroffice. My take is that its not ready for the
> sort of industrial strength usage you would put it too but for
> most "civilian" uage it seems fine,

I've been using StarOffice's StarImpress for almost 3 years now
(since version 3.1). I actually prefer it over PowerPoint.

Other than that, this is my take on apps:

- Word Processing: Hate all (always have on any OS)
- Text Processing: LyX w/SGML and/or DocBook
(why waste time with WP?!?!?!)
- DTP/Frame Layout: FrameMaker (Linux Demo), KWord? (future)

- Spreadsheet: Gnumeric, StarCalc for Linux/Windows compat
(I hate Excel,

- Presentation: StarImpress on any OS, period
(HTML w/browser is also good,
PowerPoint is the only Microsoft app that is
tolerable, but SI is much, better IMHO, esp new 5.2!)

- HTML Editor: StarWord is a very good WYSIWYG editor
(if you use Netscape Composer, dump it for SW!!!),
otherwise, it's GVIM for me, or LyX/LaTeX conversion
for documentation (see the HOWTO HOWTO), and W3C's
Amaya when I want 100% standard HTML (start with GVIM
or LyX/LaTeX, then pull into Amaya for *TRUE* WYSIWYG
preview and syntax correction/cleaning).

If you have a mixed Windows-Linux world, it's StarOffice. It's
word processor, StarWord, is adequate (just like MS-Word, but I'm
biased because I HATE word processors, period), although its
spreadsheet, StarCalc, really sucks (at least on Excel conversion
-- Gnumeric is 10x better). StarImpress ROCKS and it has replaced
PowerPoint (the only tolerable Microsoft app) and the new 5.2 beta
adds all kinds of new features (leading over PP 2000??? ;-).

I find StarWord is a perfect replacement for Netscape Composer. If
you are using Composer chuck it and start using StarWord. Amaya is
another excellent WYSIWYG HTML editor, 100% standards compliant,
but unlike the others, you canNOT simultanously WYSIWYG and markup
edit (e.g., it's good for post-processing for final publishing
IMHO).

Being an old AmiPro/1-2-3 user (and miss them both greatly,
because even Excel still does not have all the features of my
5-year old 1-2-3 release 4, let alone fast and sleek AmiPro), I
anxiously await KWord. I've played with AbiWord and it looks like
yet another word processor. KWord is a frame-layout DTP package
that should cater to us old AmiPro users (I'm hoping ;-).

> I <option><s> ( or equivalent ) every few minutes or so as an
> automatic reflex. A habit picked up many years ago on IBM
> and DEC iron of various weights and its mostly worked for
> me but yes if I were writing extensively I'd be backing
> up to zip a lot and burning CDs daily.

Yeah, but that does LITTLE if the save command in Word corrupts the
file, and even the backup file. Data integrity, NOT save
speed/backgrounding should be priority #1 / default in Word. Hence
why I have to complete exit Word, then use the file manager to copy
to 2 other systems (as well as use Xdelta to check-in on the file
server itself for revision control). Simply using Save-As (to
another drive/system) in Word can cause corruptions too!

[...]

Use the tools that get the job done best. Right now, Linux fills
about 75% of those roles IMHO. Now if I could get us over to
100% StarOffice.

-- TheBS

--
Bryan "TheBS" Smith -- Engineer, IT Professional and Hacker
E-mail: mailto:thebs@theseus.com,b.j.smith@ieee.org
Disclaimer: http://www.SmithConcepts.com/legal.html
*************************************************************
TheBS ... Serving E-mail filters to /dev/null since 1989